288. Fear Not: The Latter is Greater

Haggai 2:3-5 NKJV ‘Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing? (4) Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ says the LORD; ‘and be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land,’ says the LORD, ‘and work; for I am with you,‘ says the LORD of hosts. (5) ‘According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among you; do not fear!‘

Haggai 2:9 NKJV‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

There are great and remarkable things that the Lord wants to accomplish through His people in this world, but those things can and some have been stymied by fear. Here in Haggai, the Lord asks people to remember how the temple was. In essence, He asks them to remember how things used to be. Sometimes we have inflated memories of the past and only see the good things and neglect the good things of our present situation, but in this case the present is simply a real mess and it just plain looks like a lot of work to get things back to the quality and glory of yesteryear. Besides that there were enemies who didn’t want to see the temple rebuilt as well as naysayers who didn’t think it would work. But the Lord didn’t just want things the way they used to be in the “good ole’ days”, He wanted them better.

He goes on to tell them that there was a BETTER temple coming. We could go all kinds of directions with this (1. A better more glorious physical temple. 2. The incarnation of JESUS. 3. The church with His presence now dwelling in the temples of His people.). I say, “YES!” to all of them. But regardless, FEAR would get in the way of a greater, better temple, and God’s people experience peace, so God reminds His people of His Word saying, “My Spirit remains among you; DO NOT FEAR!”

To get to the better and greater of tomorrow, we need to get over looking over the work of today, to just achieve the success and glory of yesterday and onto the vision and dream of how things can be tomorrow. Remembering that the Lord is with us in all we do and is encouraging us to ‘be strong’ and do something (‘work’) today that will bring His divine destiny and GREATER things into your tomorrow. The Lord had an amazing vision of a greater and more glorious temple for His people and knew that fear was trying to hold them back and could succeed if they didn’t remember that He was with them and indeed had greater things in store.

The Father has amazing things in store for you. Don’t stop. Don’t quit. Do what is before you to do. Don’t settle for the success of the past, nor get bogged down with the work and fears of the present; what God has for you tomorrow is so much greater. Fear Not!